The Rationalist Manifesto

Let me jump right into the water and say: Microsoft’s new Office 2007 is a very different product from its predecessors and as such represents a very weak spot in the usually hardened Microsoft armor. This version of Office may start a huge switch-over to OpenOffice and alternatives.

This is the case not because Office 2007 is especially buggy or resource-heavy but because it is an almost complete rewrite. The user-interface and user-experience are completely different from previous versions.

For computer savvy individuals this may be a boon, as it can be fun to learn a new product — however — for IT managers that will have to bear the budgetary burden of retraining entire corps of minimum and medium wage office grunts to use the new version, this is a definite bust.

This, along with the fact that it takes only one copy of Office 2007 and a Visual Basic macro to convert all the Word documents stored in the corporate database into an open (or more open, at least) XML-based format, voids any justification that previously existed to prevent switching an organization to OpenOffice or other alternatives.

To put it simply: “If we have to re-train the entire organization anyway, why not re-train to something that costs us less? Let’s switch to OpenOffice!”

The retraining costs pull the rug from under the last argument a Pro-Microsoft IT manager may use to justify his budget request. The largest part of Total-Cost-of-Ownership for office productivity suites is the training of personnel. If before, one could standardize on Microsoft Office because that is the suite that people came with prior experience for, this is no longer the case — it is a different product, as different from Office 2003 as OpenOffice is, and even more so!

Microsoft’s sales-force are obviously aware of this chink in their armor as I’ve had reports that they are offering free re-training for Israeli government IT departments in exchange for joining as Office 2007 beta-sites. While Microsoft is trying to create a critical mass for Office 2007 not only for this reason but also to bootstrap the usual must-upgrade-to-open-Word-documents cycle, the fact they are doing this during the beta period is indicative that they are aware of their weakness. Usually they wait for the official product release to do this, so to allow those who can’t open a later-version document the chance to buy the product immediately…

The bottom-line is that open-alternative advocates who want to make use of this temporary weakness of Microsoft’s must collaborate now to raise awareness of the alternatives and inspire appreciation of the hidden training costs of upgrading to Office 2007.

Microsoft does not let its guard down very often, it is time for the tides to turn.

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…I wish. Anyway Der Spiegel dares ask the question and while it gives a glimpse at Neocon failure it does not completely deliver on explaining why neoconservatism is wrong from first principles.

Neoconservatism might look like it has one or two good ideas at first. This illusion comes because one of the core pillars of neoconservatism is the notion that some things are worth fighting for.

At first glance it seems surprising that many of the leading neocons are Jewish intellectuals as the elite U.S. Jews have a history of strong pacifism. But if you take a closer look you will see that for many Jews, pacifism stops at a very defined point — where it clashes with the certainty that without U.S. intervention Nazi Germany would have won World War II and successfully eradicated most if not all of the Jewish people.

Now– once you cross the line to believe that some things are worth fighting for, it is hard to know where to stop.

For future want-to-be neocons, I’ll give you a two part clue:
1. Unless they really (really!) ask for your assistance don’t bend over backwards to meddle in other peoples’ business.
2. Otherwise, fight your own wars and only the real ones, not the concocted ones.

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It is already old news apparently, but I’ve only just now seen the videos from the White House Correspondence Association dinner.

While seeing the first video, I felt at first a very strong cognitive dissonance as a fellow commenter on SE described it.

The dissonance arose because usually it takes intelligence and self-awareness for a person to be able to laugh at himself. As I don’t consider George W. Bush to be intelligent or self-aware, seeing him take part in his own roast gave me a start.

At first, seeing Bush make fun of himself seemed to say:
“I am not detached from reality– obviously I know what people are saying and can even laugh at it — But I am doing what I think is right and never mind my popularity”.

Holy Gristles Batman! It almost made me like the guy, but only for a few seconds, because–

Next I watched Stephen Colbert really fire up that roast and it was while watching the amazing testes that Colbert demonstrated, noting that each and every one of his jokes were about the real substance and not superficial back-slapping slapstick, that it finally clicked:

Bush’s PR guy is a fucking genius.

In G.W’s ‘roast’ by Steve Bridges the jokes were related to his occasional mispronunciation or his ‘cowboy’-ish nature. To rephrase: the jokes involved every trait of the president (and not the presidency) that the media focused-on that have nothing to do with his policy.

So it boils down to being just another type of spin, albeit an ingenious one that is designed to make it seem like the reason Bush is disapproved by two thirds of the American public is because he stumbles in his speech and not because his administration is the worst, most corrupt and least democratic administration since Nixon’s.

The message that Bush’s PR guy tried to convey is that this president’s low approval ratings are a temporary popularity glitch that will blow over while Colbert’s message was that the low approval ratings represent a dissatisfaction with a presidency riddled with corruption and incompetence. Colbert didn’t spare the correspondents themselves and skewered the media for allowing Bush to spin it all his way.

Colbert made it obvious to me that without him for balance the correspondents would have returned to stuffing their smug faces without flinching, right after Bush used them to further spin his agenda.

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THE mother of a West Lothian schoolgirl who became pregnant at the age of 11 today told how she was “proud” of her daughter.

Now read this Scotsman article that this comes from, and tell me she isn’t the real Vicky Pollard?

The eight months pregnant mum-to-be is reported to have quit school following a string of exclusions for fighting with fellow pupils.

Incredible.

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Continued from my previous post, Richi from Richi’Blog analyzes this correctly, I think:

Presumably a spammer has taken his list and “cleaned” it against the blue list, then done a diff? Like I say, I’m amazed it’s taken so long.

Quite clearly this spammer has only sent this eMail to people that were already on his list and matched against a Blue Security hash. Thanks to JohnSolver for thie link to Blue Security’s response, their web-site is slow… Maybe a DoS by the same spammer to go along with the FUD?

One response to the body of the spammer’s text:

BlueSecurity lists a USA address as their place of business, whereas their main office is in Tel Aviv.

So what? Many Israeli technology companies incorporate in Delaware for taxation reasons. The next line is clearly defamatory with no real value:

BlueSecurity is run by a few Russian-born Jews, who have previously been spamming themselves.

Their heritage is beside the point. Also even had they were spammers previously, the spammer behind this eMail has no right to make anonymous accusations.

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I just got the following by eMail, does anyone know how correct this is and whether it actually indicates a compromise of Blue Security’s eMail database?

From: GOLDEN HOLLINGSWORTH

You are being emailed because you are a user of BlueSecurity’s well-known software “BlueFrog.” http://www.bluesecurity.com/

Today, the BlueSecurity database became known to the worst spammers worldwide. Within 48 hours, the database will be published on the Internet, and your email address will be open to them all. After this, you will see the spam sent to your mailbox increase 10 - 20 fold.

BlueSecurity was illegally attacking email marketers, and doing so with your help. Many websites have been targeted and hit, including non-spam sites. BlueSecurity’s software has been fully analyzed, and contains an abundance of malicious code. This includes: ability to send mass mail to users; the ability to attack websites with Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS); the ability to open hidden doors on any machine on which it is running; and a hidden auto-update code function, which can install anything on your computer and open it up to anyone.

BlueSecurity lists a USA address as their place of business, whereas their main office is in Tel Aviv. BlueSecurity is run by a few Russian-born Jews, who have previously been spamming themselves. When all is said and done, they will be able to run, hide and change their identities, leaving you to take the fall. YOU CANNOT PARTICIPATE IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES and expect to get away with it. This email ensures that you are well aware of the situation. Soon, you will be found guilty of computer crimes such as DDOS attacking of websites, conspiracy, and sending mass unsolicited bulk email messages for everything from viagra to porn, as long as you continue to run BlueFrog.

They do not take money for downloading their software, they do not take money for removing emails from their lists, and they have no visible revenue stream. What they DO have is 500,000 computers sitting there awaiting their next command. What are they doing now?

1. Using your computer to send spam ?
2. Using your computer to attack competitor websites?
3. Phishing through your files for your identity and banking information?

If you think you can merely change your email address and be safe while still running BlueFrog, you are in for a big surprise. This is just the beginning…

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